


8-Give and Take

by WritestuffLee



Series: The Warrior's Heart, Volume 1, Early Days [8]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-09-24
Updated: 1999-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:24:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritestuffLee/pseuds/WritestuffLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Boyz wake in the Temple gardens with very different takes on how they spent the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	8-Give and Take

###  _Fission:_

Qui-Gon woke just before dawn with the afterimage of the Force lighting the grove and coruscating blue over their bodies burned onto his retinas; hearing the echo of his lover’s voice crying out with his own; feeling the ache left by their muscles spasming as though they had both been struck by lightning. He woke painfully hard and desperately aroused, wanting to sink himself into the warm, tight, forgiving refuge of Obi-Wan’s body again, to plunge into him until they both climaxed as they had last night, joined in heart and mind and spirit as much as in body, in a shattering explosion of ecstasy. He woke feeling darkly bereft and abandoned without his young lover, even though the boy lay in his arms, and knowing that even in its beauty their joining had been incomplete, that they might never be whole, as he might not ever again.

They had been conduits for something far greater than themselves last night and it had been both rapture and torment. The pleasure had been indescribable, almost beyond endurance, as overwhelming in its intensity as the fear and darkness they were counteracting. Obi-Wan had actually passed out and Qui-Gon nearly had. Instead, he had clung to both his lover and his own shredded consciousness, weeping shamelessly into the boy’s hair in racking sobs. After a few moments, Obi-Wan had woken and held him close, as alarmed by his reaction as he was himself. Eventually, they had drifted into an exhausted sleep together.

And what had he been weeping for? The emptiness he sensed in the lingering spirit of Bruck’s master? The despair at her betrayal by those she had trusted? The denial of the one thing that would make her whole again? All those things, and their analogs in himself. The knowledge that they were too much alike, he and Bruck’s master, that he was no more ready to make the kind of sacrifice asked of her than she had been.

He had never in his life been so undone, not even in the moment he had opened himself up to Obi-Wan before they were overcome by the Force. In that moment, he had laid bare nearly all his soul for his lover and apprentice. Obi-Wan, with his great heart, had mirrored the gift, incapable of merely taking what Qui-Gon offered without returning as much or more. In the following moment, the Force swept through them, stripped from Qui-Gon everything he had laid bare, and entwined it with Obi-Wan’s offering, making a powerful entity greater than the two of them that burned away the darkness in the grove. For a moment, just a moment, he had seen himself and his lover as one inextricably bound creature and it had filled him with a joy he had never guessed existed.

But that one instant was all he had been allowed. The fall from heaven had been fast and the impact all but mortal. The torment lay in knowing he could not have that now, and might never have it with this young man he loved so. Too much time and circumstance stood between them.

And it was so much worse to have had it once, however briefly, and lost it.

He would take what he could get, instead. Anything to fill that emptiness. Qui-Gon slicked his aching cock with saliva again and pulled his apprentice close, gently pushing inside him, knowing it was not a selfless act.

 

###  _Frisson:_

He woke with Qui-Gon already moving inside him, as though they had never stopped making love and, at first, he thought they hadn’t. Then the memory of ecstasy came back to him and he knew they had, in a moment of completion that had turned him inside out, shaken everything out of him, and put him back together again, a new man. In that moment of surrender he’d felt Qui-Gon pouring out everything, not just his seed, but his essence, his being, his heart and soul, his oneness with the web of life, releasing it all into the Force as though he were joining with it himself in Leth Astl’s place. He remembered being amazed at the selflessness of his lover and being a little afraid it would go too far. But even in that outpouring, there was some part of him that Qui-Gon kept to himself, closely shielded and tightly leashed, raging inside him like something caged too long. Obi-Wan had only glimpsed that hidden roiling within his lover before losing consciousness in the wake of their explosive and impossible orgasm.

When he woke again, he had found his lover not just in tears but sobbing uncontrollably. The sound had nearly torn him in two. He had never seen Qui-Gon so completely shattered, never seen him weep at all, that he could remember, and couldn’t imagine what could rend the older man so, especially not after what they’d shared. Stunned, he could merely watch for a moment, before reaching out through their bond to find his master’s shields in shreds, his heart wrung out for Leth’s stained spirit, for Bruck’s broken one, for—for himself? That shocked him. Qui-Gon was not a man to indulge in self-pity. But Obi-Wan sensed such a well of sorrow in his master, full of old pain and bitter disappointments, that it brought tears to his own eyes.

“No,” he’d whispered. “No, My Master. It’s all right. Let go of it.” Panicked and hurting, he turned and gathered the bulk of Qui-Gon’s shivering body against him, pulling him over atop his own and holding the great shaggy head against his shoulder with one hand, stroking the other soothingly up and down the stiffened spine. Qui-Gon wept like a man bereft of everything he held dear. The anguish in it had tortured Obi-Wan, who wondered how he could feel so replete and Qui-Gon so hollow. He could only assume he had not given enough of himself to his master and lover, but exhaustion had claimed them both before he could rectify that lack.

Now, Qui-Gon thrust slowly and gently into him, though he could feel the amount of control necessary for his master to keep that pace. He had wrapped one arm around Obi-Wan’s body, holding his torso back against his own chest, one large, blunt-fingered hand spread wide across his breastbone, as though he were cradling Obi-Wan’s heart. Obi-Wan reached back, caressing his lover’s flank, pulling him closer. Qui-Gon groaned and thrust into him a little harder.

He was hard himself now, balls aching and tight, cock arched against his stomach, throbbing with need. The friction of Qui-Gon’s body against his own, the warmth and size of it around him and inside him made him feel as if he were being engulfed as well as claimed, that when they were done, he would be inextricably a part of Qui-Gon. He’d never wanted anything so much as he wanted to be bound to this man, come what may. His lover groaned again, mouth buried at the juncture between Obi-Wan’s neck and shoulder, his breath hot and harsh and fast, his jaws working as though he were trying not to bite down on the tender flesh so close by.

“Do it,” Obi-Wan told him. “Let go.”

As though those words had released a physical restraint, Qui-Gon roared like a man going into battle and rolled them both onto their knees. He grasped Obi-Wan’s hips and pistoned into him at a furious pace, as though consumed by a fire only his lover could quench. Obi-Wan surrendered himself to his lover’s demands.

 

###  _Fever:_

There was only one thing in his mind now, one thing that mattered in the emptiness, and that was the body into which he plunged, because he knew somehow that it held the key to his wholeness. They were on their knees again, and he did not know how they had gotten there. The smell of sex was heavy in the air like pollen. It only made him more frenzied. The back and hips beneath him arched and writhed and ground against him as he plunged in, quivering with each meaty slap of flesh against flesh. Inside. Deeper. He heard groans, a kind of keening, panting gasps, a cry in a voice he loved:

“Qui-Gon! Please!”

The soft skin of neck and shoulder against his cheek and chin smelled of sweat and the faint remnants of soap, clean and boyish, and of a night spent outdoors in the pursuits of love. What was the boy begging for? For him to stop? Or to go on? Was he causing pain? He didn’t know, couldn’t tell.

No. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t right to use this boy so. And yet Qui-Gon heard his voice: _No, My Master. Let it go._ But that had been some time ago. Not now, not now. Not like this.

He stopped suddenly, tried to find his center, could not, could not. Broke open again, hiding his face against the boy’s bristly soft hair. There were no tears this time, but he thought he might never breathe again, stopping them.

 

###  _Fervor:_

What had started fast and furious stopped entirely, so abruptly that it took him a moment to register the fact. “No—” he heard himself beg. So close. He’d been so close. They’d been so close. Qui-Gon’s breathing was harsh against his neck. All at once he felt the weight of his lover’s head against the back of his own and the panting stopped.

He could feel Qui-Gon’s muscles beginning to tremble with need and fatigue, his own doing the same. Their completion would have to be soon. Though he knew it would not be as it had been the night before, he wanted that moment of oneness with his lover, reached out to him through their bond again to draw him in. Qui-Gon seemed unaware of it, unaware of Obi-Wan’s presence, unaware of his love or desire, unaware of anything but his own raging emptiness.

That pain caught in Obi-Wan’s chest, smothering his own breath. How could Qui-Gon think he had been emptied? Couldn’t he see— _//Oh, love, no. Let me fill you again.//_ Obi-Wan sent everything, everything of the love he felt for Qui-Gon, as lover and master and friend, out along their bond. It would have drained him completely if love were not something that only expanded to fill the space given it. How had Qui-Gon forgotten that?

 

###  _Foundering:_

The force and weight of Obi-Wan’s love hit Qui-Gon like a storm tide, reared him upright on his knees, blasted into the empty places in him like floodwaters into a small room, flattening everything in its way: self-pity, loneliness, fear, lust, formless need, pride, guilt. Roughly awakened from the manic trance of desperation, he found his gaze traveling up the perfection of the smooth, arched, glistening back below him as though seeing it for the first time, as though just realizing he was not fucking something, but someone, and who that someone was. His self-absorption sickened him, shamed him.

Obi-Wan looked at him over his shoulder, eyes hooded with arousal but also overflowing with the gift he had just given his master. “Qui-Gon,” he pleaded in a voice febrile with desire, “Love me.”

He touched the small of his lover’s back with shaking fingers. “I don’t know how,” he said, voice thick and dull and frightened, so appallingly frightened, looking into Obi-Wan’s trusting face with shame. He did not, truly. He knew only how to take from this seemingly bottomless wellspring of love that wore his lover’s flesh. Darkness gathered around him, almost palpable. Leth’s darkness, his own.

 

###  _Found:_

_//Take, then. You gave last night. It’s your turn now. Take,//_ Obi-Wan told his lover. He felt the darkness gathering nearby and pushed back against it and against Qui-Gon’s groin and thighs, driving his lover deeper inside and rocking him back on his heels as Obi-Wan moved back with him to straddle his lap. This would not come between them; Obi-Wan would not allow it to take Qui-Gon as it had taken Bruck’s master. He leaned back against his lover’s chest, glad for once of the height disparity that let him nuzzle against Qui-Gon’s face and neck, his hands running over the heated and tender skin of his lover’s flanks, drawing a shiver from him.

Slowly, he rocked up and back, letting Qui-Gon fill him, feeling as though his lover were so deep inside him that he was reaching up under his ribs and into his heart, stealing his breath. “O gods, love,” he moaned in a guttural voice, and reached for Qui-Gon’s hands, laying them against his chest and holding them there as he impaled himself again and again like a willing sacrifice. Everything he wanted was right here, kneeling behind him, the hands beneath his own and warm on his chest, the cock deep inside him, the breath stirring against his skin, the long tendrils of his lover’s hair flowing against Obi-Wan’s back, the heart and soul of him for the asking.

 _//Take what you need. Let me give to you,//_ Obi-Wan told him, contentment and love filling him, spilling into their bond, pushing away Qui-Gon’s despair and the darkness with it.

 

###  _Fable:_

It both warmed Qui-Gon and saddened him.

This was not a time to be thinking of old lovers, but he was. He and Mace had sat like this one night, many, many years ago, when they were both young knights, meditating together on love and passion and serenity, hands joined like this across Qui-Gon’s belly, bodies joined as Obi-Wan was to him, Mace’s cheek resting quietly against his back as they rocked together in tiny movements. They had balanced in a perfect equilibrium of arousal and fulfillment for hours, cocooned in and buoyed by their openness to the Force, by their love for each other, by the serenity they found in both, having harnessed their passion for one another. They had been lovers for nearly a decade at that point and knew one another so well that they could convey their thoughts through glances and half-finished sentences or the brief touch of the Force. Not a master-padawan bond, nor as strong as a life bond, they had yet shared a congruence of mind and heart that made them, in many ways, a pair, a single unit composed of two comrades, two colleagues, two peers.

This is what he was missing with Obi-Wan, what he knew he might never have.

No matter how much Obi-Wan gave, Qui-Gon could not yet return it whole-heartedly, without some restraint, and it grieved him to know that. He grieved, too, for what he had lost with Mace when they had parted ways, and the way they had parted. He grieved for what he had wanted and never known with Tahl. He grieved for Leth’s misplaced and unbridled desire, for her apprentice’s misguided and painful attempt to fill it, and for his own possibly just as misguided liaison with Obi-Wan.

 _No matter,_ he told himself. _No matter, old fool. The present is here, on your lap, in your hands. Live in it. Make it live._

 

###  _Fact:_

Qui-Gon was stock still for a moment, then began to rock up against him, sliding his hands out from under Obi-Wan’s to wander over his young lover’s body, as though exploring it for the first time. His mouth found the tender skin behind Obi-Wan’s jaw and kissed and licked a line down it, then bent to his shoulder, which he bit gently and suckled, sending warmth through him in a gentle wave. “No other like you,” Qui-Gon murmured, “nothing sweeter.” Qui-Gon’s fingertips circled his sensitive nipples, spiraling closer but not touching until Obi-Wan began to moan and squirm, aching for that touch. Finally, they were pinched and rolled between Qui-Gon’s fingers, and he gasped and shuddered, writhing back against Qui-Gon’s chest.

Clever hands ran in long, slow caresses over Obi-Wan’s shoulders, down his arms, up the outside of his legs and sides, down over his chest and belly and thighs, back up inside them, as he rubbed his cheek and beard against Obi-Wan’s hair as though marking him for his own. Qui-Gon’s hands lingered on the inside of his thighs, stroking in light touches, then up over their crease to his hips and back down again slowly, so slowly that Obi-Wan’s cock was twitching in anticipation.

Then one hand carefully burrowed in behind his balls, which were tight up against his body, and just barely stroked the painfully sensitive underside until Obi-Wan was half lifting himself both up into and away from that touch, not sure if he wanted it or wanted to escape it, whether it was pleasure or pain. The other hand closed around his cock, gliding upward with a steady pressure, swirling the palm over the crown and the pre-cum beading there and sliding back down again in a tight ring to repeat the motion.

The movement was so smooth it was almost hypnotic, and yet the tension mounted just a notch each time they rocked together. Obi-Wan shuddered and reached back again to clutch as much of Qui-Gon’s ass as he could reach, feeling the edge approaching.

 

###  _Fusion:_

Obi-Wan fed each sensation back to him as though it were a delectable morsel from a banquet, until he could feel the caresses on his own body and there became less and less of a distinction between the two of them. But Obi-Wan was more than a mirror to him. With each physical sensation came the emotion it aroused, the desire, the anticipation, the surprise, the gratitude, the expansive affection, the amusement, the consternation, the trust, the overwhelming peace, all of them a feast of love—his love, their love. Obi-Wan offered; Qui-Gon took and was replete.

No, it was not what he had had with Mace, or with any other lover. It was a new thing, bright and hot, melding them together, tempering both of them, scorching first one then the other in the process. They had built this truly new thing together last night— _together_ —a part of both of them, greater than the sum of those parts through the Force. Who was to say what they would have when Obi-Wan was knighted, when they could come to each other without reserve? For Obi-Wan had his own constraints, though it had not occurred to him before. Besides, it had taken years of their own learning as padawans and lovers to reach what he and Mace had had in that remembered moment. How foolish to expect it now from his own padawan and his own heart that was so scarred. They both had so much learning to do.

They rocked together with more urgency, two hands entwined over Obi-Wan’s cock, two hands entwined over his belly, holding them steady. Already it felt as though they had been moving together for hours and both of them wanted completion. Still, they built toward it slowly, savoring each other. Qui-Gon moved them onto their knees again and drew back until only the head of his cock was inside his lover and stroked in shallowly, just nudging his prostate, eight times before plunging in fast and deep, raking into him hard. The effect was electric. Obi-Wan shuddered and gasped, legs and arms going weak as the charge spread through his oversensitized nerves. Seven more slow, shallow strokes and this time two hard, deep ones that nearly sent him over the edge. Qui-Gon waited before starting again, to let his lover find his equilibrium, and they fell easily into the pattern. As the ratio shifted, the pause between the sets became shorter and their movements less controlled until they both came together in the middle of the last set of nine, the final deep thrusts completely involuntary. Obi-Wan cried out his lover’s name but Qui-Gon had no words, no coherent thought at all. There was merely the glory of his lover’s body, the gift of it and all the love that filled it sluicing into him on the sound of his name in that moment.

Like a building tumbling in on itself, they settled almost in slow motion back onto Qui-Gon’s cloak as Obi-Wan pulled his own up around them in the dewy morning light. They shivered a little, sweat drying on their bodies in the cool air, and nestled closer for warmth, Qui-Gon reluctant to withdraw and Obi-Wan reluctant to have him do so. They hovered on the edge of sleep, petting and touching one another, still connected.

“Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan, my heart,” Qui-Gon whispered. “What do you see in me?”

“I see the future, My Master,” Obi-Wan murmured, yawning, so sure of himself.

Qui-Gon hoped it was true.


End file.
